Advocate: Verla workers described unsafe conditions

Daniel Axelrod Times Herald-Record @dan_axelrod

Thursday

Dec 7, 2017 at 8:42 PMDec 7, 2017 at 8:42 PM

CITY OF NEWBURGH – Two dozen employees of cosmetics maker Verla International, LLC described unsafe working conditions to the staff of a Kingston nonprofit at a Thursday event designed to offer them career, health, safety and legal resources.

The event at the Orange Works Career Center was held by the Workers Justice Center of New York, the state Department of Labor’s Rapid Response team and the Mount Sinai Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health. It was a response to the explosive, deadly fire on Nov. 20 at the New Windsor factory, which killed 57-year-old employee William Huntington and prompted 125 workers to seek medical treatment.

Kihani Brea, a worker-rights advocate at the Worker Justice Center, said the Verla employees at Thursday's event described regularly becoming physically ill with issues such as nosebleeds from working around the factory’s chemicals.

Brea added that the Verla workers reported an utter lack of occupational health, safety and evacuation training and no protective equipment beyond paper masks and hair nets aimed at keeping saliva and hair from contaminating products.

“What every worker has described is alarming,” said Brea, who added that a Verla worker contacted her organization a year ago with an unsafe workplace complaint.

To verify Brea’s account, a Times Herald-Record reporter attempted to interview eight Verla employees as they left Thursday's event, but was unsuccessful due to a language barrier.

Verla is no stranger to safety violations. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the company for safety violations 19 times from 2013 to 2016 – including 13 violations dubbed “serious” – and the agency collected $60,421 in fines. OSHA inspectors are conducting an investigation expected to last six months.

The cause of the explosive fire was presaged by a November 2016 OSHA inspection report that cited Verla for failing to properly store and ground both flammable-liquid containers and their pouring nozzles to prevent dangerous sparks. That’s the same condition that caused the fire, according to an Orange County fire inspector.

“What (Verla workers) described is a lack of knowledge of certain things, and they said they were afraid to go back to work, because they didn’t feel they were properly educated with what they were dealing with in terms of chemicals,” said Pastor Rosey Lawal, whose Northeast Gateway to Freedom ministry in Newburgh provided groceries last week to about 100 Verla workers and their children.

Since Nov. 20, the privately held company's co-owners and leaders, President Mario Maffei and Vice President Robert Roth, have declined repeated requests for individual interviews.

MaryEllen Bohren, Verla’s director of operations, did release statements on their behalf on Tuesday and Thursday, the latter disagreeing with “any of the negative characterizations” reported to the Worker Justice Center on Thursday.

“We have always had an open-door policy for any employee who has a concern or a suggestion about safety,” the Thursday statement read. “We maintain a safety program that is reviewed and improved on a regular basis through the support of various agencies and auditors. Likewise, our employees are furnished with approved safety and health equipment, and they receive appropriate training at the beginning and throughout the course of their careers.”

The company's leaders said about half of the firm’s 225 employees remain out of work since the fire led them to close the factory’s 19,000-square-foot packaging and blending area.

The rest are back working, with the blessing of New Windsor officials, in the undamaged 53,000-square-foot portion of the factory where Verla leaders said they’ve been safely making products such as nail polish for 38 years.

In the Verla leaders' Tuesday statement, they said that, last May, the company “hired an outside electrician to ensure the appropriate electrical grounding was in place throughout our facility,” and reinforce safety training with employees. But Verla didn’t explain why those measures failed to prevent the Nov. 20 grounding issue.

“This has been a very difficult time, and our Verla family has been deeply saddened over the loss of William ‘Bill’ Huntington, a wonderful friend and colleague,” the company's leaders wrote on Tuesday. “Our hearts and prayers are with his family.”

daxelrod@th-record.com

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